Brooklyn needs booster in shots

Hitting their shots isn’t the Nets’ problem. Taking more of them is.

The team’s most glaring shortcoming last season was a stark shot differential, which gave their opponent far more looks at the basket. Though that has been a point of emphasis, the weakness reared its head again in the 127-104, opening loss at Milwaukee.

The Nets allowed 21 more shots than they put up, 105-84. They got mauled 13-5 on the offensive glass and were outscored 22-2 off of turnovers. It’s a story that has played out before.

“We’ve talked about it. We talked about it the night before training camp, we talked about it throughout training camp. So the guys are aware of it,” head coach Steve Nash said. “That’s an Achilles’ heel for our team. We’ve got a long ways to go. … It’s a characteristic of our team that just needs constantly to be addressed and to combat that any way we can every night.”

If Nash harped on it in camp, the message clearly didn’t sink in enough. It may not have that much of an impression on James Harden, but watching it come back to bite them Tuesday against the Bucks drove the message home.

“We haven’t really talked about getting more shots than opponents this entire preseason,” Harden said. “That was a conversation last year for sure, but this year we haven’t talked about it thus far. Now, after this game watching film we’re definitely going to talk about it.”

➤ Patty Mills was stellar in his Nets debut, scoring 21 points and shooting 7-for-7 from deep. He tied the team record for most 3-pointers in a game off the bench, and the NBA mark for 3s in a debut with a new team.

“We’re going to need that from Patty. We talked the other day about him being aggressive as a scorer to be a playmaker,” Durant said.

➤ The 76ers’ Ben Simmons clearly still wants to be traded and didn’t play in Philadelphia’s opener Wednesday. He got booted from practice by coach Doc Rivers on Tuesday and promptly put his Moorestown, N.J., home up for sale hours later, according to NBC.